


Where Never Once Expected

by Eirenne Saijima (ladypoetess)



Category: Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 23:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5069170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladypoetess/pseuds/Eirenne%20Saijima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carolyn Sanderson spent her life running from the Psi Corps, never wanting anything to do with those loyal to the Corps. And then she met a Psi Cop who tried to help her, who dared love her, and she found a tiny part of the Corps she did not want to run from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Never Once Expected

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlterEgon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/gifts).



> With grateful thanks to [LeaperSonata](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LeaperSonata) \+ roommate for beta comments and critiques!

"Please let me help you, Carolyn."

Al's voice was pleading, but I couldn't let him do all the things he wanted for me. I just couldn't. He stood for everything I ever opposed and never wanted to be. But then, I'd resisted so much of what Al wanted to do to help, but I couldn't refuse all his attempts.

"What do you want me to do, Al?"

"Just let me do what I can to make you more comfortable, please. If you won't join the Corps, at least let me make your time here better."

"All right, Al." I couldn't help but agree, his rarely-seen genuine smile lighting up his eyes as he heard my words.

That's how I ended up with a bigger room with a much more comfortable bed, more amenities (as such things are in a re-education camp) available to me, and enough additional food that I stopped feeling a constant ghost of a gnawing beast in my middle. They keep us always a little hungry at least, you see, because hunger makes us more emotionally unstable, which in turn makes us more susceptible to their suggestions and 're-education'. They don't starve us, not enough to seriously hurt our bodies anyway, just enough to hurt our psyches. It's the same reason that our rooms are normally cramped and confining, our beds small and hard and uncomfortable. The less often and less well we sleep, the more off-balance we are and the more likely we are to succumb.

I suppose that first agreement -- letting Al make me more comfortable in my confinement -- lead to what happened next. You see, it is quite common among the women here that our natural body cycles stop after a time. The restricted food and sleep and constant emotional strain, I suppose. When Al gave me back some measure of comfort and safety, as my body saw it, it was time to begin my own tides again.

"Oh, Carolyn," Al's voice was soft but with a different intensity than it normally held. Where usually he was all focused intent and an almost religious fervor for his beloved Corps, this was frighteningly intimate and held the heat of a man looking at a desperately desired goal.

I loved him, I knew, despite the fact he was Psi Corps and I wanted nothing to do with the Corps. He had spent long hours talking with me and telling me about himself; initially this was an attempt to draw me toward accepting re-education, I'm sure. But in time he began to tell me more of his own past and to seem personally interested in mine. By the time I invited him to my bed, I knew I was hopelessly in love with the man. My head insisted that this was the worst decision I could make if I wanted to avoid the Corps, but my heart didn't care and I had been _so lonely_ for _so long_ that when he offered love, I accepted.

I'm not sure I can describe the feeling of watching Al lovingly touch my belly, feeling him reach out telepathically to touch the forming consciousness of the baby I was carrying. There was nothing there to communicate with, not then, but with the strength of we two combined, there was a kind of cloud of psychic impressions. Al sat there with his ungloved hand on my belly for a long time, peace suffusing his features. I knew he had children with his wife, but I don't think he had ever experienced this before.

When they took me and handed me over to things I can only think of as fear incarnate, this was the image I held in my mind. That, somehow, in the midst of trial and despair, I found love and family, if only for a moment in time.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this fits the ideas that you were looking for in Bester fic, AE!


End file.
